The unconsoling voice had the last word. For it was not in answer to it that a certain phrase came into her brooding mind.
"I couldn't do a caddish thing like that."
It puzzled her. She had said it to Steven that night. But it came to her now attached to an older memory. Somebody had said it to her before then. Years before.
She remembered. It was Ally.
LXIII
A year passed. It was June again.
For more than a year there had been rumors of changes in Morfe. The doctor talked of going. He was always talking of going and nobody had yet believed that he would go. This time, they said, he was serious, it had been a toss-up whether he stayed or went. But in the end he stayed. Things had happened in Rowcliffe's family. His mother had died and his wife had had a son.
Rowcliffe's son was the image of Rowcliffe.
The doctor had no brothers or sisters, and by his mother's death he came into possession both of his father's income and of hers. He had now more than a thousand a year over and above what he earned.
On an unearned thousand a year you can live like a rich man in
Rathdale.